It is to known to employ a removable divider to divide the interior volume of an open head container or bucket into several essentially isolated parts. By way of example, the U.S. design patent to Lillelund Des. 320,942 illustrates a divider insert for a tapered, open head container. The divider insert has three vertical walls which appear to meet at the longitudinal center line of an open head container to divide the interior of the container into three parts, each of which is accessible through the open top of a container.
Other devices have been conceived for controlling the interior volume of a straight sided or cylindrical open head container so as to reduce the dead air space within the container and preserve the freshness and usability of food products or paint. In these cases the divider is circular in plan and is oriented within the container at right angles to the longitudinal axis of symmetry.
An example is Blessing U.S. Pat. No. 3,987,941 which illustrates a vertically movable follower 18 having a flexible, wiper-like seal 24 about the periphery so as to be engagable with the interior wall of a cylindrical container 12. A generally similar arrangement is illustrated in Kral U.S. Pat. No. 5,213,230 in which a molded plastic divider 10 having a centrally located upstanding hollow handle 14 is insertable into a cylindrical paint can at any vertical location which corresponds with the surface of a volume of unused paint. Here the purpose is to maintain the freshness and usability of the paint. Similar arrangements are illustrated in Valasek U.S. Pat. No. 4,874,108 and Bainton U.S. Pat. No. 2,167,619.
A still further divider arrangement is illustrated in Holman U.S. Pat. No. 3,040,897. In Holman a strainer or perforated partition 16 is supported within the interior of a cylindrical container by means of side supports 24 at fixed locations on the container interior side wall and corresponding notches 26 in the strainer which permits it to clear the supports for insertion and removal. In an alternative arrangement, the strainer or partition is provided with legs which maintain a set spacing between the surface of the partition and the bottom of the container.